Coeur d’Alene Fishing Report 03.14.18
Coeur d'Alene River
Flow 2,430 cfs and climbing. It fished great last weekend but with the current rain it is on the rise. I think it is still a viable choice though for a few day as it is supposed to stop raining in the next day or two. It is still fairly low but is coming up quickly. The streamer fishing should be killer. Big double Congas, Dungeons, Sculpins, black and olive Woolly Buggers. Get them down quickly with a sink tip or split shot and strip them quickly. Concentrate on the slower pockets and near the banks as the water is coming up and the fish will migrate to the slower stuff now. Nymphing will be great too. Larger stone fly nymphs trailed with a smaller bead head nymph will be killer as well as the San Juan Worm. Hopefully the rain will cease quickly and not muddy up the water to quickly. It should be a killer year up on the Coeur d' Alene guys. Also, come check out our new flies, we just got in all of our new bugs for the year and are putting them out this week and we have some awesome stuff.
St. Joe River
Flow 1,970 cfs and climbing. The flows are pushing up like the Coeur d' Alene with the rain, but shouldn't be a big deal breaker as the flows were pretty low to begin with. I actually prefer the Joe at or around 3,000-5,000 this time of year. It moves you along if you are floating and gives you way more opportunity in some of the runs than when the flows are lower. This is from the perspective of a drift boat guy though. The wading opportunities will be diminished as the water climbs though. There will still be wading opportunities however, you will just need to fish tighter to the banks and inside bends in the river where it is slower. Same fly selections as the Coeur d' Alene, bigger streamers and nymphs, but be on the look out for some Midges, Blue Wing olives and possibly some smaller stone flies. The Skwalas are soon to come here too guys.
Clark Fork River (MT)
Flow 4,280 cfs and steady but ready to climb with the rain. Holding steady guys but not for long. Not sure that it will hurt the fishing with a small bump in the flows this week, and actually it should do good. I fished it last Sunday and Monday and was incredible. Sunday was better than Monday as we had some nice overcast on Sunday and the fish were gorging on Midges big time. The Midges over on the Clark Fork are actually fairly large 18#-14#'s were the norm. The fish really liked the Midge pupae as well, so think Zebra midges in black or Skinny Nelson's were killer too. Nymphing with the Midge Pupae was very effective in some of the deeper riffles. We caught fish on larger nymphs as well like Princes, 20 Inchers, large Pheasant tails, Pat's rubber legs, San Juan Worms in orange and pink. Did not see any Skwalas yet but did see some nymphs under some rocks, so they are not too far off. Over cast will be your friend for the dry fly fishing, so if you hit one of the sunny days to come, concentrate on the shady spots to look for rising fish as our experience from last Sunday to Monday was fairly drastic on how the fish reacted to the conditions. Monday was blue bird with no clouds to speak of and the fish were only rising in the shade that we could find. The back eddies and foam lines held rising fish too. Streamers were ok but not great, we caught just a few fish on streamers and the takes were not aggressive, so a slower retrieve was best. The Clark Fork should be killer for the next week or so unless we get hit with a bunch of rain quickly.
Read past reports from the CDA region here, or click here to view all northwest regional reports.